Fears That Bind Us
by KillMeHealMe
Summary: Set in Post-Harry potter era Hogwarts (There aren't any HP characters in this). A fight gone wrong leads John to believe he's lost his best friend but when Sherlock is faced with a boggart, Watson gets a glimpse of how human the genius really is.


_Disclaimer - These get really repetitive after a while._..

Fears That Bind Us

John Watson had been waiting outside the Herbology greenhouse for fifteen minutes before he decided to find Sherlock. They were meant to meet there so Sherlock could sneak in and steal some leaves from the Venomous Tentacula for some sort of experiment but he hadn't shown up.

He made his way down to Hagrids hut towards the edge of school grounds where Sherlock should have just had a Care of Magical Creatures class with the Slytherins. He seemed to enjoy the lessons but that was probably due to Hagrid bringing in interesting and potentially dangerous animals on a regular basis.

About half way down, he spotted Sherlock and immediately saw why he hadn't shown up. He had been cornered by Anderson, Sally Donovan and Dimmock although, Sally was the only one actually pointing a wand at him. The other two Slytherins had clearly been on the wrong side of a couple of Sherlocks curses as Dimmock seemed to have lost control of his legs as they did a sort of tap dance while he yelled at someone to stop them and Anderson was sprouting purple hair all over his body and was very quickly starting to look like a purple teddy bear.

Sherlock looked a little worse for wear himself, with blood from his nose dripping off his chin onto his blue and silver scarf and his wand about four feet away from where he stood. Sally was smirking at him, wand pointed at his chest. John began to run down the hill towards them.

"I told you to leave us alone, freak."

Sherlock smirked at her. "If your boyfriend took your advice, we wouldn't be in this situation to start with."

She looked shocked for a moment before stuttering out: "What are you talking about?"

"You may want to think about putting a silencing charm on the classroom before other people start to notice."

She went bright red, clashing horribly with her own green scarf. "How dare you..."

"Sherlock!"

Holmes turned to face John who was still running towards them. He started to smile in the way he only did towards him. "John...!"

"_Levicorpus_!"

Sherlocks legs were suddenly yanked from underneath him and hoisted skywards as he was lifted into the air upside down.

John pulled out his wand as he reached them. "Put him down!"

"Why should I?" Sally called back, her eyes fixed on Sherlock with a grin on her face. "He always embarrasses me, why shouldn't I humiliate him?"

"I am warning you, Sally." His voice was low, dangerous and matched with his darkening eyes, John Watson was not someone you wanted to anger.

"You can have your boyfriend back in a minute John. Just let me see if I can make him cartwheel through the air."

"Hey look at Holmes!"

John turned to see the next class for Care of Magical Creatures staring and laughing at Sherlock who was now squirming in his position with an angry red staining his cheeks. His shirt was coming untucked from his trousers as he twisted himself through the air, revealing something that only Mycroft and John knew about.

The people in the crowd stopped laughing; some looked horrified, others looked sick and turned away. One girl had started to cry. Sally frowned at her loss of audience and turned to face Holmes to see what had caused it. Sherlock was trying to fix his shirt but gravity was not on his side. The large faded scar on his abdomen could still be seen. She let out a strangled noise before quickly removing the curse and sending him to the floor where he landed in an unceremonious heap.

John cursed and rushed to his side. He knew this wouldn't end well. John only knew about the three scars that crossed over his chest because an 'adventure' in the Forbidden Forest had gone awry, leading Sherlock to need John to fix two broken ribs so he wouldn't have to go to the Hospital Wing. It had taken him six days to get the story from him. He never told John what spell had been used. They became even closer through it but Sherlock had done everything possible to avoid anyone else from knowing. He loathed sympathy.

"Sherlock mate?" He touched his arm but Holmes quickly yanked it away from him and jolted to his feet. His usually pale face was still uncomfortably red. He glared at Sally with now slate grey eyes before turning on heel and running towards the Forest.

"Sherlock wait!"

He didn't. Instead he cast one of his homemade spells and vanished from sight. John knew from experience that had hadn't apparated; not even he knew how to do that in school grounds. He had just turned himself into an invisible being. He'd never catch him.

He turned to face Sally who was still doing an impression of a fish out of water. "Are you happy now?"

Sherlock was ignoring him. Not entirely unusual, he often went through times where he wouldn't speak for days on end but he had never avoided Johns presence entirely before. He couldn't get closer than a few feet before he would disappear again. He was getting pretty damn sick of it.

"Sherlock!"

The boy in question turned slightly before quickening his pace, heading towards the dungeons. He often spent time there fiddling with different concoctions. Slughorn loved him so he could pretty much do what he liked.

The Gryffindor followed him, having to run to catch up. He managed to grab his arm before he disappeared into a classroom and because it was lunch, they were on their own.

"What's wrong with you? Look, I get that you're upset even if you'll never admit it but I've done nothing wrong. At least talk to me."

"And why would I talk to you?" His voice had gone even lower from its natural octave from the intensity he was using.

"Because friends talk to each other when they need to."

Sherlock studied him for a moment. "But I don't need to talk about it. I don't need to talk about anything. I especially don't need to talk to friends because that would imply I have any."

John started to feel sick. "I'm your friend you great prick."

"But I don't need you nor do I want you to be. Just leave me alone."

He could feel tears prick his eyes but refused to let that show to the Ravenclaw. Nearly three years of friendship were deteriorating right in front of him. "Alright.. You know what? Fine. You don't want friends, you got it."

He didn't bother looking back into the dungeons as he stormed off. He just wanted to be alone.

"Congratulations little brother. You've just managed to rid yourself of the only real friend you have in this place."

Sherlock barely glanced over at his brother. "Leave me alone, Mycroft."

"I don't think so Sherlock." He walked over towards him, umbrella in hand. "So what did poor John do now?"

The younger shook his head. "It's not what he did, it's what I did."

Mycroft raised an eyebrow. Sherlock just sighed frustratedly.

"I'm sure you heard about what happened a couple of days ago." The elder nodded. "The reason I was disabled so easily was because of John. Donovan had her wand pointed at me, she was angry and I knew she wouldn't just stand there for long. But the second I heard Johns voice calling me, it's like I forgot about that. I turned to him instead. I got _distracted_ Mycroft. That's never happened to me before and it can't happen again."

He was quiet for a moment. "I've never had friends before and I'm just starting to remember why."

Mycroft sighed. "Caring is not an advantage Lockie." Sherlock nodded. "But I think in this case, even if it isn't an advantage it certainly is a necessity."

The next time Watson saw Sherlock, was in Defence Against the Dark Arts the next day. He hadn't bothered to go to any of his lessons after his argument with Sherlock the day before. It felt like he had lost part of himself with Holmes. He had other friends of course but none compared to the genius. He hadn't been able to sleep that night or eat in the morning. He just didn't care. In fact he was seriously considering finding the boy and following him regardless of what he wanted.

"Come on, John. Cheer up mate. I bet you and Sherlock will kiss and make up in no time."

John looked over at Lestrade who was sat to the right of his desk. Sherlock had sat himself as far back and to the left as he could and was now a few seats away from John rather than right next to him.

"I'm really not in the mood for this Greg."

"Alright class!" Professor Taron clapped his hands to catch everyone's attention, smiling manically like always. Some students thought he had been in Azkaban for a while and had gone mad through it; most didn't care. He was a good teacher regardless and held no house favourites. "Can anyone tell me what a boggart is?"

John frowned. He had heard the name before but couldn't place it. The professor looked slightly surprised for a second. "Yes Mr Holmes?"

He turned to face Sherlock who indeed had his hand in the air. It wasn't a wonder why the teacher was surprised, Sherlock never volunteered information in class other than to insult someone or tell the teacher why they were wrong.

"A boggart is an amortal shape shifting non-being that takes on the form of the viewers worst fear." His voice was almost a perfect monotone and only John could hear the slight shake in his words.

"Correct! 10 points for Ravenclaw!" Taron turned to face a cupboard that had been placed in the middle of the room. "Now, the best thing to do with a boggart is face it in a group to confuse it but today, you're going to use a spell instead. You see, there is a charm to combat a boggart: _Riddikulus_. It requires a strong mind and good concentration but this alone won't work. You must also think of something that will make the boggart look amusing. It needs to be funny enough that it will create laughter which is the only way to beat a boggart. Don't worry though! If what you fear is something that has the ability to kill you with sound or such like, the boggart can only turn into a weak form of it so it's perfectly safe! Now, who wants a go?"

Nobody volunteered.

"Hmm. Then I guess I'll have to be mean and choose people!" He looked around the classroom in an exaggerated manner. "Miss Callaghan! Why don't you give it a go?" The Ravenclaw girl stood up reluctantly and walked to the front of the class.

"Now remember, the spell is _Riddikulus_."

She nodded at him as he unlocked all of the locks with his wand and opened the cupboard. A massive python slithered out of the cupboard and raised its head to look at her. The girl started backing away before Taron reminded her of the spell.

"_R... Riddikulus_!" The snakes body started to know itself until it looked like a writing piles of knotted string.

"Fabulous! Alright Mr Leary, you turn."

He continued to pick people at random including Greg whose worst fear turned out to a Banshee which he quickly turned into a mute much to everyone's delight.

"Mr Holmes! Up you come!"

The class turned silent as Sherlock walked to the front, desperate to know what his worst fear is.

The boggart faced him from its position on the floor (someone had turned a blast ended skrewt into a small tortoise). It quickly began to warp itself into something else.

"Hey John." Greg poked him and he looked over. "Do you want to bet it's something like being average intelligence." He nodded vaguely, that did sound like something he would fear.

A sound that John had never heard before came from the front of the classroom and he jolted back to face the front. It was Sherlock. Screaming. He clamped a hand over his mouth and dropped to his knees, wand forgotten. There, where the tortoise had been rolling, was a body with blood pooling from three scars that crossed his chest and stomach. _Johns body_.

Before anyone could react, someone started to laugh. It was clearly a form the boggart had taken as no one John knew sounded like that, cold, cruel and humourless. A man stepped out from the cupboard. He had ice white skin, a sallow face with sharp cheekbones almost cutting through, dead eyes, a harsh smile on thin lips with greying-brown hair styled neatly on his head. He wore dark robes with the sleeves rolled out to his elbows showing off the black Death Eater symbol dyed into his right arm. Nobody had to ask, the man looked too much like Sherlock to be anyone else than his father.

"I warned you what would happen if I saw you trying to help a mudblood again, boy. Do you not remember last time? I would rather you had no friends than see you lower yourself to this level." He walked to Sherlock. "You're a freak as it is, an embarrassment to our family! Next time, I won't let Mycroft heal you and you can bleed out like this _filth_."

A strangled scream of "No!" Wrenched itself from Sherlocks mouth as he gripped his wand, staggered to his feet and roared "_Riddikulus_!" With a loud crack! the image changed but only part of it. The Death Eater didn't change at all but the body on the floor morphed from Johns form to Mycrofts. This only upset the younger Holmes further.

"No, no_, no! Riddikulus_!"

The body changed again, this time into an elderly woman Watson didn't recognise.

"Do you see what you've done boy? It's your fault she's dead! It's always your fault, freak!"

"S..stop it! _R..Riddikulus_!"

The boggart morphed back into John sensing it had the most affect in this form.

The real John finally acted, reaching Sherlock he threw his arms around the young genius. "It's all right, Lockie. It's not real, I'm right here." He continued to sooth him for a few more moments before Sherlock started shaking and as he turned to bury his head into Johns shoulder, Watson realised Holmes was weeping silently. The genius clutched John to him as though trying to confirm that he was still alive, still with him.

They barely noticed when Taron forced the boggart back into its cupboard and locked it firmly. All John cared about was the boy in his arms.

"I was wrong John. For the first time in my life I was wrong. You can't leave me, I _need_ you." Sherlock rasped into Johns ear, careful to make sure only he could hear.

"I'm not going anywhere, Lock."

_Well that ended up longer than intended. Opinions? _


End file.
